G.W. Carver Hallway

George Washington Carver Elementary School was located on Holland Street in west Marshall, about a half-mile from present-day Price T. Young Elementary. Carver opened and began holding classes on Sept. 2, 1959, when students were transferred from New Town Elementary School after it closed in 1959.

The first principal at Carver was O. Ivan White, who supervised 14 classroom teachers and a music teacher in grades 1-7. In the spring of 1969 the school was to be renovated for use as an educational building for central staff, but those plans were abandoned when Stephen F. Austin Elementary burned in the summer of 1969.

In 1970, Austin/Carver and Dogan schools were paired, with grades 1-3 assigned to Carver and grades 4-6 to Dogan. In 1972, a six-room wing was added for kindergarten, special education and music classes.

After a reorganization of MISD schools in 1981, “Austin” was dropped from the school’s name and it was once again called G.W. Carver Elementary School. At that time, Carver was paired with Travis Elementary School and began housing grades 3-4, early childhood and special education.

In 1989-90 the school as reorganized as Carver Academy, a magnet school attracting academically-gifted and artistically-talented students in grades 1-4 from across the city. Children from the immediate neighborhood continued to attend Carver in the regular program, and kindergarten students from the Carver zone began attending Washington Early Childhood Center.

In 1997-98, the magnet school concept was discontinued and the program for gifted elementary students returned to the individual MISD campuses. Carver Academy once again became Carver Elementary, and Head Start program classes were taught at the school from 1999-2002.

With the passage of the Legacy 2017 bond program in May of 2015, Carver was closed down as an elementary school and its students are now a lasting legacy along with students from the old J.H. Moore Elementary School as part of the newly consolidated Price T. Young Elementary in Marshall ISD.

George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver (1860s – January 5, 1943), was an American botanist and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he was born into slavery in Missouri, either in 1861, or January 1864.

Carver's reputation is largely based on his promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops both as a source of their own food and as a source of other products to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. He spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts; none were commercially successful. He was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work.

In an era of very high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts, and racial harmony.

Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice". Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute, invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.

While a professor at Tuskegee, Carver joined the Gamma Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He spoke at the 1930 Conclave that was held at Tuskegee, Alabama, in which he delivered a powerful and emotional speech to the men in attendance.

From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses. This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time.

Upon returning home one day, Carver took a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.

On his grave was written, He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.